


Ghosts in a Machine

by Marvinetta



Category: The Losers, The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvinetta/pseuds/Marvinetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Nilchance's prompt on <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/losers_minibang/">  Livejournal's Not-So-Big-Bang Challenge.</a><br/><i>Horror! Jensen receives a mysterious file from another hacker (a friend of his?), with some unnerving sound distortions and/or faces in the static, etc, in it. He follows it back to his friend and finds out that said friend committed suicide right after hitting 'send'.</i></p><p>Jensen then starts hallucinating, feeling like he's being watched, can't sleep.</p><p>Horror ensues. Like the Ring, or the Slender Man mythos. Could be a hoax or gaslighting, could be for real.</p><p>Beta'd by Katemonkey and Galadfhea on LJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts in a Machine

Jensen was sitting on the back deck, letting the sun attempt to even out his farmer's tan when his computer beeped. Very few people had his only long term email address, and very few people used it because it was set up as an emergency type thing, in case any of his circle of hacker friends needed help. No one really knew anyone else's identities beyond first names, and they had all promised to not track each other down. Surprisingly the system had held for ten years now. That email address hadn't received any mail in over a year.

Shifting in his chair to haul the laptop up into his lap, Jensen frowned when he saw the sender, no topic, and two attachments. There was no way Morgan would have been hacked and sending out a virus, but Jensen ran a few tests on it to be sure, and then clicked open the video. A slender, middle aged man looked like he was about to vomit. His eyes darting wildly around before he realized he was recording.

"I know we said we'd never track either other down and I'm sorry. I had to. He had my kids and I had to. I didn't want to know about any of this and I didn't want to do this and now I'm going to kill us all. Max lied to me, he killed my kids even after I helped him so I'm sending this to you because I know you already want him dead, Jake. I know what he did to you guys and I know you'll kill him for my kids, too. I'm so sorry. Don't look too deeply into this, just stop him. Stop it all. I'm going to try and stop the upload of the code, but if I fail know that I'm so fucking sorry-"

The video cut off abruptly just as Jensen watched the man on the screen lift up a gun and place it on the desk before slamming the computer shut. The video was full of static, and there were too many ambient sounds. Jensen ran a program to isolate the noises and listened to one. Goosebumps raised as he heard a child's voice, saying something in gibberish. Running another filter, Jensen attempted to play it backwards and his stomach lurched as the whispered phrase came out clearer.

"You killed us. You killed us all."

Jensen sat up in his chair and started filtering out the other ambient noises as well. Each time he filtered one of the noises and played it back, his stomach knotted. If it was a practical joke, he was going to track the man down and beat him to a pulp. Creepy children's voices saying "you're too late", "everyone will die", and "you killed us all" were not appropriate for jokes on anyone. As Jensen opened up a folder and started saving off the isolated sound bites, he went over what Morgan had said in the video and wondered what he meant by not looking too deeply into it. The video? The code? Why the man was sending out creepy ass videos?

Jensen finished saving off the sound files and started working on the video itself. There were several bits of static and a few frames that seemed out of place. After two hours of messing around with the video, Jensen leaned back and rubbed his neck. Most of the static was probably just corruption in the video file that he'd have to run through a more powerful computer to fix, but some of the random frames had him seriously pissed off. One file was of two dead children, executed in the back of the head and arranged around a small table like dolls. Another was of his own niece, her eyes crossed out in an obvious threat and warning. Another picture of a helicopter, the exact model that had exploded in Bolivia with 25 children on it.

Who ever made the video was a seriously sick individual. Jensen saved off pictures of the children's faces and set them to run it through a program he'd developed that trawled public social networking sites for facial recognition. In a few hours he'd know who the kids were if their parents had any public pictures of them available. With the video dissected and analyzed, Jensen opened up the code attachment with the mental note that he'd just give it a quick look before heading off to bed. He had to meet the team in the morning, this mess would have to wait.

Jensen jumped awake as someone leaned on the doorbell to his apartment. Shoving his glasses back onto his face, Jensen glanced at his watch and let out a long string of curses. Luckily he wasn't meeting the team for more than a bit of information sharing. However, being late for anything despite not being Army anymore, was still frowned on.

"What the fuck, Jensen? Where is your phone? We've been calling you for two hours. Are you sick?" The last question was delivered in a slightly less angry tone, and Pooch shouldered his way into the room as Jensen tried to wake up the rest of the way.

"I was working on something last night, I guess I fell asleep. I didn't hear my phone ring at all." Jensen looked around, confused, because he'd never missed a phone call unless he was unconscious.

"Something to do with Max?" Pooch was suddenly interested, but still eying Jensen like he was sprouting a second head. "How late did you stay up, J?"

"It might be, I think so. I'm not sure." Jensen looked up to see his computer beeping that a match had been found. "Shit. No way."

"J? What's going on?" Pooch hovered over Jensen's shoulder as the hacker pulled open a Facebook page.

"Fuck. This is bad." Jensen scanned the Facebook page briefly before hacking in and searching through the private areas.

"Who is that?" Pooch asked softly, images of a smiling father holding up two small girls on a beach. "Do you know them?"

"Um. I need to work on this." Jensen closed the windows and jerked his glasses off to press the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Can you ask Clay to give me a few days. I have a really bad feeling this is tied to Max."

"Are you okay?" Pooch spun Jensen around and forced Jensen to look at him.

"I'm fine. I just," Jensen trailed off and looked at the blank desktop and swallowed hard. "I need you to go get my niece and Jolene and hide them. I don't think they're safe. I know the guy in those pictures. I think he's dead, but I need to confirm it before I do anything else."

"Alright man, I'll go talk to Clay. We'll scrub anything else and work on hiding Jolene and the kids." Pooch rubbed one of Jensen's shoulders. "Get some rest man. You look like shit."

"Yeah, will do." Jensen smiled as brightly as he could and forced himself to act normal as he showed Pooch to the door. The second he heard Pooch's car start up outside, Jensen pulled the windows back up and stared at them. The kids in the video were definitely Morgan's kids. It was either the most elaborate prank ever pulled, or Morgan had run into Max somehow and now his entire family was dead. Jensen opened up the code Morgan had sent, and started reading it again.

The sound of his phone dragged him back to reality, and Jensen ached as he moved his arm to answer the phone. Four hours had passed and Jensen barely registered it. The number was one of Clay's, and Jensen didn't want to talk to the man yet, until he had more information. 'Yeah boss, I got a creepy video with Ring-esque images of dead kids from a hacker friend who may or may not have been killed by Max'. With no information to back it up would just end up stressing him out. Clicking the ignore button, Jensen tossed it aside and shoved his chair away from the computer.

With a bowl of re-heated Chinese food, Jensen camped in front of the television and turned it on the Food Network to help him zone out. The hyper Italian chick was making some dish with lots of garlic and a whole fish when suddenly the picture of his niece flashed on the screen for a heartbeat. Jensen choked on his food and scrambled to rewind the DVR, using slow motion to scan the frames. There was no sign of his niece, so he chalked it up to lack of sleep and continued watching. Unlike normal though, his mind kept wandering back to the code Morgan had sent. It was just a series of incomplete, seemingly innocuous, smaller codes. Maybe Morgan was sending him his unfinished work. Maybe it was finished and Jensen was just was missing something.

Leaving the television on in the background, Jensen printed out a small section of the code and sat staring at it for several minutes. Occasionally he'd make a mark with his pen, noting something of interest. After an hour had passed, and Jensen was still staring at the same piece of code, he threw the pen across the room and turned off the television. Rubbing his neck, Jensen wracked his brain, trying to think of something he might have missed. Maybe he wasn't supposed to figure out the code, but it was so frustrating not being able to figure out why Max would want a bunch of what amounted to gibberish.

Giving up for the night, Jensen checked his messages to find 4 missed calls from Clay and two from Pooch. It was mostly updates saying that Jolene and the kids were safe, and to stop worrying about them. Clay wanting a status update. Pooch wanting to know if Jensen had gotten any rest. Jensen sighed and fired off a text message to both of them saying he was fine and still working on the research. He'd call when he had something. Wandering back through the living room, Jensen turned off the television. Then he stopped as he remembered he'd turned it off before he'd left the room. Looking down at the remote, Jensen turned it back on to see what channel it was on. The Italian chick was cooking something else.

"And then after you add the lemon zest, some uranium gives it just the kick it needs to kill everyone at your dinner party!"

Jensen came awake with a strangled noise. The television was on, and the code he'd been working on was sitting in his lap. The Italian chick was happily chattering away on the television, only this time there was no mention of killing people or adding radio-active materials. Creeped out, Jensen unplugged the set before leaving the room. Setting his computer to trawl several websites for any mention of a creepy video with weird code attached, Jensen headed to bed. He dimly noted it was 3am, and sighed as he rolled over.

"Senor? Senor!" Jensen came awake slowly at the sound of a small child calling out. Laughter from the kitchen confused him, so he grabbed his gun and wandered from his bedroom. The television was blaring the Italian lady again, but he didn't register it immediately. As he passed into the kitchen, he saw Morgan's two small girls playing jacks on the floor. When they looked up at him, they screamed briefly before their heads exploded from gunshots. Jensen freaked and dropped his gun when he realized he'd fired the shots. As he looked up from his gun to the girls, the oldest one's eyes flew open.

"You killed us. You're going to kill them all."

Jensen woke up with the echos of his own scream ringing in his ears. He scrambled out of bed, finding his gun exactly where he'd left it when he went to bed. The television was off and unplugged as he hurried through the living room, the remote control where he'd left it. As he turned into the kitchen, he laughed with relief that it was empty. Chalking the nightmare up to watching the video so much, Jensen ran a hand over his face and went back to the bedroom to put his gun back.

Sinking into his computer chair, Jensen decided he wasn't going to watch the video for a while. Research be damned. Nothing had popped up overnight in his search, so at least no one else had the video or the code. Jensen shoved the itch to work on the code some more out of his mind and started tracking Morgan's movements for the last month. Jensen needed to confirm that Morgan was indeed the father to those particular kids, and that they were indeed dead.

His stomach rumbled several hours later, and Jensen reheated the last of his Chinese food. Knowing he'd have to go out for more soon, or call one of the guys to bring him more, Jensen sighed heavily. He hated leaving the house when he was working, and hated other people hanging around him even more. As he inhaled the last of the noodles, his computer beeped. Someone uploaded the code, but not the video to a popular hacker forum. Jensen recognized the IP address as one of Morgan's. Dead men couldn't post to forums, so Jensen immediately started following the other hacker's tracks. Cursing as the trail dead-ended almost immediately, Jensen leaned back in his chair. Morgan had only come online for 10 minutes to upload the code to the forum.

Jensen tried another search method, and tracked down a home phone number in Miami within a matter of minutes. It rang four times, and then the same male from the video was asking him to leave a message. Jensen hung up before the beep and pulled up the address on the map. He could make the drive in 19 hours. Or fly in four. Not wanting to risk falling asleep on a crowded plane, Jensen packed up a laptop and a small duffel bag. He decided to wait until he was on the road to text Clay, in case the other man tried to stop him. A small voice in the back of his head was ringing a warning bell at keeping his team out of the loop, but Jensen shoved it down. The video was creepy, and he didn't want anyone to have fucked up dreams. Plus, it wasn't like anyone else on the team could help with the code part.

At the Maryland-Virginia line Jensen texted Clay that he was tracking a lead out of town. Clay called five times in a row before sending a very angry, very misspelled text ordering him to turn around. Jensen turned the phone off and threw it in the back seat. Clay needed to stop treating him like a child, and let him do his own research without a babysitter. Jensen fumed the entire way across the state before pulling over at a rest area just inside North Carolina. Turning his phone on to set an alarm, Jensen had five new voice mails and another angry text. Jensen listened to them before deleting them all and replying to the text that he was fine. Jensen smirked at the fact Clay always called five times before leaning his seat back and drifting to sleep.

"Jake, wake up. Please! Wake up!" Jensen's eyes fluttered open at the sound of Jolene's voice. Confused he called out twice before realizing he was in the car, and it was time to get back on the road. The radio station he'd been listening to had turned to mostly static during the night, and he turned it off. Looking around the car, he tried to figure out why he was hearing Jolene's voice. Slipping out of the car and heading into the rest area, Jensen checked his phone for more messages. There was one from Cougar, sounding totally pissed off and Jensen winced at bit at the short message telling him to come home _now_. Then he paused as Cougar called him an idiot, and tried to focus on a noise in the background. Jensen stood in the empty bathroom and listened to the message a dozen times before deleting it and turning his phone off.

The creepy kids voices were in the background, telling him he'd kill everyone. Jensen stared at his reflection in the mirror and wondered if this was had driven Morgan to send the video. He could feel the paranoia clawing at his brain and a small part of him knew all the voices had to be a hallucination or some type of trick. Shit like this only happened in the movies, not real life. In the end though, the paranoia and the fear won out, and Jensen ripped out the SIM card and tossed the phone in the sink.

"No more creepy fucking messages, 'kay thanks." Jensen turned on the water and let the sink fill. After the phone had been underwater for a while, he pulled it out and slammed it on the floor. After dumping the bits in the trash can, Jensen went back to his car and ripped the stereo out of the dash. Throwing it in the trunk and ignoring the strange looks from an older couple that had pulled up, Jensen got back in the car and started driving again. The voices couldn't get to him without the stereo or the phone, and that same small part of his brain was laughing at him for being such a coward.

By the time he crossed into South Carolina, Jensen was about to crawl out of his skin. Every car that passed him seemed to have children in the backseat that waved at him. Half of them were dead. It was seriously fucking with his mind and he had to fight to stay at the speed limit instead of just flooring it. The last thing he needed was to be picked up by the cops. Instead, Jensen focused on saying the alphabet backwards.

The entire time he was driving through Georgia, Jensen couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. He'd gotten used to the dead kids waving at him from passing cars. He'd started singing off key to try and keep himself from pulling off the road and running into the woods screaming. Something was definitely wrong with him, but Jensen couldn't focus enough on the thoughts to actually _think_ about them. They kept slipping into the background each time he tried to grab hold of them.

When he finally crossed the Florida state line, Jensen was shaking and he felt nauseous. He wanted to keep driving, but he forced himself to pull over and found a small motel to check into. The clerk thankfully didn't seem to care about Jensen's agitated state and gave him a room on the back of the building. Jensen offered up a weak smile before taking the key and pulling his car around. He was glad it would be hidden from the road, even though the odds of anyone who would recognize it after driving down that particular back road were nearly nonexistent.

The room was small, but quiet. Jensen paced for a while, trying to figure out how he was going to sneak in to Morgan's house without getting caught. Under normal circumstances it would be a walk in the park, but he was twitchy and distracted. Settling down on the bed finally, Jensen decided to get as much sleep as possible and get up in the morning.

The sound of a cooking show woke Jensen up, and he blinked at the fuzzy "3:00" on the clock radio before turning his attention to the television. The hyper Italian lady was making some dish that looked odd to him, but he couldn't place it. As he pulled on his glasses, Jensen realized what was wrong. The bowl was full of blood, and bits of brain matter. One of Morgan's dead children was draped across the counter as the cook scooped out a spoonful of the girl's brain and dumped it in the skillet.

"And I want to thank my buddy Jake for supplying all the fresh ingredients today!" The cook chirped and Jensen felt himself start dry heaving.

He woke up gagging, and barely registered that the television was off as he stumbled into the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before he vomited. There was hardly anything on his stomach and he reverted to dry heaving quickly. After a few minutes, his stomach settled enough for him to rinse his mouth out and wander back into the living room. He started pacing again, trying to organize his thoughts to figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

The television set was off, but every time Jensen looked at it, he felt an incredible urge to smash it into small pieces. Finally, he unplugged it and shoved it into the tiny closet and covered it with a towel. Shortly after, the alarm clock/radio on the nightstand joined it and Jensen used a wire hanger to tie the doorhandles together so it wouldn't open. The small part of his brain that yelled at him that something was wrong was getting louder. He tried to grab hold of the thoughts but they inched just out of reach again. With a frustrated yell, Jensen grabbed his keys and fled the motel room.

It didn't take him long to find Morgan's house on the outskirts of Miami. It was a sprawling mini-mansion near a golf course. He never would have thought Morgan would be the suburb type. After two hours of watching the house as the sun went down, Jensen pulled a mask over his face and finally crept up to the house. The alarm system was already disabled, and all the lights were out. He could hear the hum of a generator from inside, and his brain immediately knew something was very wrong inside the cheerful looking house.

Letting himself in, Jensen drew his gun and cleared the house slowly and methodically. He made sure not to leave any traces of himself behind as he swept from room to room . In what was obviously Morgan's home office, Jensen found the man slumped over his computer desk, with a gun in his hand to suggest a suicide. A quick look showed that it was staged, and Jensen bit back the urge to scream in anger. There was a small generator in the room, feeding an air conditioning unit, presumably to slow the decomposition. Someone had plans to return, so Jensen turned to finish his sweep of the house.

The last room on the upper level had the sound of a generator humming, similar to the one he'd heard downstairs. The door looked cheerful, with child drawn artwork tacked up all over it, and glittery lettering spelling out "Janet and Chelsea's Room". Jensen's stomach rolled as he put his hand on the knob and turned, the bile already rising in this throat since he pretty much knew what he was going to find. Holding his arm to his mouth to try and keep from puking, Jensen noted that the girls were arranged around a small table like they were at a tea party. Just like in the photograph. There was another generator and another air conditioning unit that was keeping the room nearly frigid. Jensen bit back another wave of nausea and returned to Morgan's office.

It seemed like all of the man's computer equipment was still there, in addition to several external drives that were clearly out of Morgan's pay grade. Jensen struggled with the urge to leave the scene exactly as he'd found it, and take some of the gear with him to study. Curiosity finally won out and Jensen grabbed as much as he could fit in a small backpack he carried with him "just in case". Once he had Morgan's hard drive from his home computer, two laptops and four external drives, Jensen let himself out of the house and hurried back to his car.

Once he was back to his hotel room, Jensen stared at his haul and realized there was no way he'd be able to work from where he was. He'd need a massive computer to break into the hard drives without the codes, and the video would also need a powerful system to clean up the video. He ran down several places that had computers he could use, and eliminated them one by one. Whoever was keeping Morgan's house on ice would return eventually and realize the theft. If it was Max, he'd probably come up with the same list Jensen would of viable computer options. Thankfully, most of the options were corporations or schools, and Max might not know about the handful personal supercomputers scattered across the country side.

Settling on the home of an old friend outside of Kent State, Jensen loaded all the computer equipment in the trunk and checked out of the motel as soon as he could. It was painful work taking everything out of the closet, but Jensen didn't want to arouse suspicion by leaving things out of place. The clerk barely acknowledged him, for which Jensen was grateful. On the road, Jensen debated picking up a new cell phone just to check in with the team, but each time he went to pull over, he'd get physically ill and just keep driving.

Between the nausea and the exhaustion, it took Jensen two days to drive to Ohio. When he pulled up to his friend Brandon's house, he quietly broke in the backdoor only to find the house empty. Notes on the calender showed he was allegedly on vacation, but Jensen swept the house anyway, just in case he found more generators and air conditioning units. The house was clear, so Jensen pulled the car into the garage and set to work using his friend's homemade supercomputer to clean up the video and run an analysis of the code. Once everything was set up, Jensen sat in one of the closets and tried to ignore all the electronic noises beeping around him.

After a full day of letting the computer work, all Jensen could show for it was the cleaned up version of the video which he was afraid to watch, and an analysis of the code that he was afraid to read. He hadn't had time to do more, as according to the calendar his friend Brandon would be home the next day. Jensen made quick work erasing his work and any sign he'd been there and loaded everything back in to the trunk of car.

The more he tried to think about what was going on, the stronger the urge to look at the code got. There was also a screaming headache brewing as Jensen realized Max was definitely involved, and that Clay needed to know. Every time he stopped at a strip mall with the intention of buying a phone, his stomach lurched and he didn't feel better until he was back in the car.

After an hour of driving, the exhaustion started to catch up to him. Jensen found another small motel off the highway and got a room. It took him an hour to unscrew the television from the dresser and muscle it in to the closet, where the clock radio, and all his computer equipment soon joined. Instead of just tying the door shut, he wedged one of the small chairs up underneath the knob. Once that was done, Jensen tried to get his brain to cooperate with him, which it hadn't been doing for over a week.

After spending almost an hour pacing and dry heaving, Jensen fished a phone card out of his pack and sank down at the in-room phone. A part of him started screaming that someone could trace it back to him, but the only person on the team who could track him, was Jensen himself. Jensen felt sick as he picked up the phone and his hands shook so bad he could barely dial the numbers properly. It barely rang once before Cougar answered.

"Jensen, where are you?" Cougar's voice was low and laced with worry.

"Ohio." Jensen dropped the receiver as the nausea got too strong and he fled into the bathroom. After a few seconds, the urge to vomit lessened and he sat down, exhausted. He could hear Cougar yelling, which dragged him somewhat out of his fog. Inching out of the bathroom, Jensen laid down on floor before pulling the phone back to his ear. "Holy shit, you're yelling. You never yell."

"And you've never run off alone like this. Give me your address, now." Cougar was seething and Jensen winced a bit. He started to give the address of the motel and started to dry heave again. He barely got it out and heard Cougar say he was on his way before he hung up the phone. Jensen barely made it back to the bathroom before he started vomiting again. Belatedly he realized he had no idea how long it would take the sniper to get to him, or how he'd get in contact before knocking on the door. In his current frame of mind he might shoot first and not ask questions at all. Jensen sighed and decided to just call back in a few hours and ask.

Pulling himself upright, Jensen stared at his face in the mirror. Dark circles were under his eyes and his skin was even paler than normal. After splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth, Jensen laid down and fell asleep almost instantly. For the first time since he'd watched the damn video, he slept peacefully and actually woke up somewhat rested.

As his stomach rumbled loudly realized he hadn't eaten in almost two days. There was a convenience store down the road, so Jensen grabbed his wallet and hoped the cool night air would help settle his stomach. Instead, the noise of the highway made his teeth grind as he kept hearing whispered voices buried deep in the low buzzing every time he passed the open door of a store or restaurant. He still felt like someone was watching him, and every time someone made eye contact with him, his skin crawled. After grabbing enough food for a few days, Jensen hurried back to the room and barricaded himself in.

He ate as much as his angry stomach would let him, and laid back down on the bed and counting the ceiling tiles to try and clear his mind. After he finished every tile on the ceiling, and the food had finally settled, Jensen felt a little bit better. Sitting back down in front of the phone, Jensen pulled out his phone card and only felt slightly less sick as he punched in Cougar's number.

"Are you ok?" Cougar answered on the first ring, and Jensen could hear Clay in the background asking if it was Jensen.

"I think I've been drugged or I'm going crazy. Maybe both." Jensen felt bile rising in his throat and fought to keep it down. "Where are you?"

"Tennessee." Cougar muttered something else, and Jensen could hear the phone changing hands.

"What the fuck is going on, Jensen?" Clay's voice was low and Jensen could tell the man was trying to not yell at him. "Pooch went to your place to check on you, and found some fucked up shit on your computer-"

"He didn't. Shit, Clay, tell me you guys didn't start looking into that stuff? How the hell did he even get into my system?" Jensen flopped back on the bed and rubbed his forehead.

"Cougar knows all your passwords, remember? Besides, you left without shutting your desktop down. We were worried, and Pooch managed to track you until North Carolina. Have you been watching the news at all?" Clay jostled the phone a bit. "Pooch is calling me. Can you call back in five minutes?"

"I don't think I have much air time left on this card." Jensen sighed.

"Don't you normally just hack into the system to give yourself more minutes?"

"My laptop is hidden in the closet." Jensen heard Clay inhale sharply. Muffled in the background, Jensen thought he heard a child laugh and his stomach lurched.

"We've been worried since we haven't been able to call you. What did you do to your cell phone?" Clay asked cautiously.

"I busted it up. I'm sorry, I know I'm not supposed to. I kept the SIM card though, it's in the closet with the laptop." Jensen felt the urge to look at the code start rising as he thought of his laptop again. He struggled to suppress it.

"Okay. I'll see if Pooch can find the direct line to the hotel room. Otherwise expect us in 4 or 5 hours." Clay was trying to sound calm, but Jensen could hear the stress in his voice.

"I don't have a clock. I put it in the closet, too." Saying it out loud made Jensen realize just how weird he was being. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"I don't know, but I promise we're going to find out. I have to call Pooch back. What's your room number? If he can't get a direct line I'll just call the hotel and have the clerk patch me through." Clay hung up with another promise that things would be fine. Jensen didn't know if he believed it or not.

Jensen wondered if he should have asked Clay if he heard any weird noises in the background of the conversation. Clay sounded stressed out already, and Jensen sounded crazy enough without adding to it. If nothing else, he could just ask when the team showed up. With a huge yawn, Jensen stretched out across the bed and wondered if he'd be able to sleep peacefully again.

Since the clock radio was in the closet, Jensen had no idea how long he'd been asleep when the phone started ringing. As his fingers wrapped around the receiver, Jensen braced himself for whatever creepy voices would be there behind Clay's voice. It was mostly static when he finally placed it to his ear and said hello.

"Jensen! What the hell are you doing?" The voice was vaguely familiar and it took a second before it clicked.

"Morgan? But you're dead. What the fuck-" Jensen was getting ready to launch into an angry tirade when Morgan cut him off.

"Listen to me, there's not much time. Don't read the code, it's not a computer code. You were right, it's not complete and it was never meant to be. Just leave it alone." Morgan sounded desperate.

"But you told me to stop it!" Jensen felt nauseous again.

"The nausea is good Jake, it means you're not lost. Don't worry about the code, stop the upload!" There was a gunshot and the line clicked dead.

Another gunshot sounded, only this time it was right behind him. Jensen rolled off the bed from instinct and realized the phone was ringing as he hit the floor. With blood pounding in his ears, Jensen gingerly picked up the receiver and closed his eyes as he answered.

"We're a block away, get ready to let us in." Cougar's voice was calm and Jensen couldn't stop the laughter that came over him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'll explain later. See you in a few." Jensen hung up the phone and started ripping drawers out of the furniture until he found a pen and a pad of paper. Jensen started writing all the weird shit that was happening down, and marking all the times he'd felt sick. As each word ended up on the paper, Jensen felt more and more sick, until he finally had to give up to race to the bathroom. He was still dry heaving when the knock came at the door.

Clay and Cougar entered the room and searched it thoroughly while Jensen went back to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He felt weak and didn't put up a fight as Cougar shoved a Gatorade in his hand and sat him down on the bed. Clay leaned against the wall and watched him silently. Once Cougar seemed to be satisfied with how much Jensen had drank, he slipped out of the room with his cellphone out.

"Start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out. I don't care how crazy it is, or sounds, I want it all." Clay's low was low, almost soothing. Jensen rubbed his hands across his face and let it all spill out.

Occasionally, he'd start getting nauseous as he talked about the code, or even the fact he was getting physically ill when he thought about what was going on. Clay just stood where he was, nodding occasionally. Cougar came back in, right as Jensen was describing his dream about the kids in his kitchen and squeezed Jensen's shoulder. When Jensen got to the part where he ripped the car stereo and put it in the trunk, Cougar and Clay exchanged a look, but Jensen pressed on figuring they'd explain after. As Jensen described Morgan's house, and how he'd broken in, he heard Clay sigh heavily and Cougar sat down next to him. It wasn't until he got to the part about the girls' room that Jensen finally had to go into the bathroom to vomit.

Both Cougar and Clay waited patiently while Jensen brushed his teeth again. Cougar handed him a glass of water and rubbed his back gently as Jensen described driving to Kent State to use a friend's computer. Remembering the paper with all the details on it, Jensen handed it to Clay.

"That's pretty much everything I have trouble talking about. I tried to write stuff down as I could think of it, but it's so hard to focus." Jensen rubbed the back of his neck as Clay scanned the paper.

"So you haven't seen the news at all this week?" Clay asked quietly.

"Fuck, no. I can't stand to be around electronics for some reason. I hear voices and hallucinate. I'm never going to be able to watch Food Network again." Jensen whined and felt Cougar rub his back more firmly. It was finally sinking in just how bizarre he'd had been acting, and Jensen felt terrible for putting his team through it. "I'm really sorry about all of this."

"You're not the only one. And actually, you're doing a little bit better than others." Clay shifted a bit and pulled a newspaper out of his jacket pocket. "There's at least two dozen people who we know have read that code you're working on. They start with hearing voices, getting paranoid, having hallucinations, and having really bad nightmares. Then after about 3 or 4 days the paranoia starts taking over and they start destroying electronic equipment and getting violent towards anyone who tries to stop them. After about a week they completely break from reality. A kid in Los Angeles burned down three computer stores, killed 8 people in the process, and then ran in front of a bus. A girl in Seattle locked herself in her apartment and when the cops went to check on her, she jumped off the roof. The rest have all been committed. All of them were known computer geniuses or suspected hackers. How much the code affects you seems to depend on how good you are with computers."

"Holy shit." Jensen felt mildly better that he hadn't completely lost it yet. But then he wondered why. "There's something wrong with the code, it's programming language but it's gibberish. If it's supposed to be a program it's incomplete, and totally innocuous on the surface. I've got all Morgan's computer stuff in the closet, but I'm honestly afraid to look at it. I guess with you guys here to keep me on track it won't be so bad."

"How about you get some rest. You look like hell." Clay folded the newspaper back up and headed out of the room. "We'll grab the room connected to this one, that way we can work on your computer with it bothering you. That alright?"

"Yeah. I guess so." Jensen didn't feel sure, even as he said the words. Cougar tugged Jensen's shoes off, and was guiding him under the covers, before Jensen realized that he should be fighting back. Instead he just curled up under the covers. "I've been waking up from nightmares puking, screaming, or ready to shoot something."

"Thanks for the warning." There was no trace of mocking in Cougar's voice as he slipped Jensen's gun into the back of jeans and moved the trash can closer. Cougar squeezed Jensen's shoulder before sitting down on the bed next to him. "We're here."

Jensen smiled weakly, just happy that he wasn't the only one going crazy. In the morning, he'd argue with Clay about not letting him help with the computer stuff. Until then, he was determined to get as much rest as possible. Something was definitely wrong, and Max was most likely behind it. Jensen would be damned if he let Max win, especially if it meant Jensen killing himself or taking out the people he loved in the process.

The first clue something was wrong was when Jensen heard a female voice in the other room. It was the Italian chick, and Jensen felt the urge to set a television on fire. He'd never be able to watch that fucking show again at this rate. Jensen went to reach for his gun, but it wasn't there. Panic started to set in and Jensen lurched off the bed, only to feel cold hands on his wrists. He looked up, and felt nauseous as Jolene tried to talk, but half her face was missing. She was grabbed at his wrists, trying to keep him from pulling away, and Jensen lashed out with one leg to try and stop her progress. Instead, suddenly the Italian chick was next to Jolene, grabbing at his arm and holding up a very large knife.

"Hold him still!" The Italian chick yelled, and Jolene sat on his legs to lock him down. Jolene adjusted her grip on his arms, and blood splattered all over him. Jensen thrashed wildly as the knife got closer to him, and finally screamed as he felt stabbing pain in his arm. Then, everything went fuzzy before fading to black.

The next time Jensen woke up, he still felt fuzzy. When he tried to lift his hands to rub at his face, they wouldn't move very far. His eyes flew open and he realized his hands were duck taped together and then tethered to the headboard. He was on his side, head hanging over the bed, aimed at a trash can. Cougar was sitting on the floor, with an icepack against his knee, watching him suspiciously.

"What the hell is going on?" Jensen's throat was raw and talking hurt. Cougar winced as he stood, and held out a bottle of water with a straw in it. Jensen tried to pull himself into a more comfortable position, but his legs were taped together and anchored to the foot of the bed. Cougar didn't look like he was about to undo the duct tape, so Jensen caved and took the offered drink. When he was done, Cougar sat down next to him.

"I assume you were either dreaming or hallucinating." Cougar splashed some of the water onto a wash cloth and wiped it across Jensen's forehead. "We had to sedate you. You've been running a fever, too."

"And you tied me up. I'd appreciate your kinkier inclinations, but I'm really sore." Jensen didn't really have the energy to put much emotion in his voice, but Cougar laughed softly anyway.

"I don't feel comfortable letting you loose until Clay gets back." Cougar rubbed at Jensen's neck. It helped a little with the stiff feeling, but Jensen still felt like he'd been hit by a truck.

"That's fine, I'll just lay here and gloat that you're afraid of how bad-ass I am." Jensen smirked up at Cougar before looking back at the water. Cougar took the hint, but before he let Jensen drink, he fished out several pills.

"For your fever, and the nausea," Cougar said quietly. Jensen debated arguing, but the look of concern on Cougar's face made him sigh in defeat instead. Cougar popped the pills in Jensen's mouth, and raised the water bottle for Jensen to get another drink. "You've been out almost a full day."

"Did Clay find anything?" Jensen managed to adjust his position a little to look up at Cougar more easily.

"He did. He's meeting Aisha and bringing her here." Cougar shifted his position a little and put the icepack back on his knee. "I take this as payback for all the times I've decked you in my sleep."

"Sorry." Jensen sighed again. Cougar shrugged at the statement. They both knew Cougar wasn't the only one on the team who would come up swinging from a bad nightmare. Jensen yawned and hated that he felt tired again. "You aren't telling me what Clay found."

"You're right." Cougar stood and went back to where he'd been sitting on the floor. "Clay will be back soon. Go back to sleep."

"You'll be here when I wake up?" Jensen waited for Cougar to nod before he relaxed. He managed to adjust his position a little bit more, and fell asleep nearly instantly. His last thought was hoping that he wouldn't have more nightmares.

Jensen couldn't categorize them as nightmares. But he definitely wasn't enjoying the dreams either. The first time it happened he knew he was dreaming, because his niece was complaining that he was heavy as she struggled to keep him from falling off the bed. He yelled at her for having a knife as she cut him free from the duct tape, and she laughed at him. The next time he went to puke, it was Jolene. She was angry at him for some reason, but was petting his head gently as he vomited more. Finally he laid back against the bed and felt comfortable, and shooed Jolene away as she yelled at him to wake up. The bed was too comfortable, and she wasn't real, so Jensen ignored her and let sleep claim him again.

He could hear voices, but they sounded a little garbled. It was like trying to listen to something underwater. Then Jensen realized he felt like he was underwater, and tried not to panic. The logical part of his brain was clawing at him, trying to tell him it was a dream, but his body reacted on instinct and he started struggling. The voices got louder and Jensen felt hands on him, then the world tilted. He heard gagging and choking noises, and realized he was the one making them. Warm hands were rubbing his back and there was a cold rag being dragged across his face.

"-sen are you alright?" Clay's voice came into focus suddenly and Jensen cringed at the volume. "What the fuck happened?"

"He just started vomiting again, no warning." Aisha's voice sounded confused and calm at the same time. She was obviously trying to calm Clay down. "I had trouble rolling him over. At least it was better than when you had him duct taped to the bed. Did you have to tie him down so tight?"

"We barely got him tied down in the first place." Cougar was there, and his voice was closest. Jensen could feel that Cougar was behind him on the bed, holding him over the side so he could puke. A small groan escaped as he realized it was probably the least attractive sight on the planet.

"Jensen, talk to us." Clay was the one dragging the wet cloth over his face.

"If I talk, will you guys stop yelling?" Jensen felt Cougar laugh behind him and heard Clay sigh.

"When's the last time you looked at any of the stuff your friend sent you?" Aisha asked in a low voice.

"Couple of days before the Calvary got here. Why?" Jensen rolled onto his back, and was glad when they let him. He opened his eyes to find Aisha perched on the bed by his knees. Clay was sitting on the floor with the trash can between his knees. "I have good aim, I didn't hork on you."

"That printout you have, it says the code is mostly subliminal messages that most people won't pick up on unless they're really good with computer programming. That fits with all the intel I've gathered on the people who have gone off the deep end. It get you addicted to figuring it out, then makes you paranoid and violent." Aisha pulled out a file and handed it to Jensen. "It's safe to read."

"I'm in withdrawal? What kind of fucked up person came up with this?" Jensen asked after he'd scanned the file. It made sense though, once Jensen realized he could think more clearly about it. "Why didn't it affect me as much?"

"I have no idea. Maybe it's because you're just so awesome." There was a hint of teasing in Aisha's voice and Jensen managed to flip her off. "To be honest, I'm not sure. When you're feeling better you can read the full print out and finish dissecting your friend's video."

"I don't have the urge to set fire to the television." Jensen was a little shocked, and incredibly happy. He felt Cougar pat his shoulder. Clay laughed a little. "I'm serious."

"Oh, we know. It took both me and Cougs to get the TV out of the closet and back into place on the dresser. I'm not sure how you managed to get it in there in the first place. Fucker is heavy." Clay stood and took the trashcan into the bathroom. "You haven't had violent hallucinations or nightmares for a few days, and since we're all three here I'm not tying you back up. Don't make me regret it."

Jensen gave a small salute and watched as Aisha and Clay wandered into the adjoining room. With a hefty grunt, Jensen rolled towards the edge of the bed and was glad when his legs kept him upright. Once he was in the bathroom, he brushed his teeth before doing anything else because the inside of his mouth tasted like a dumpster smelled. Cougar watched him from the bed, and Jensen didn't even bother closing the door as he stripped and climbed in the bathtub and let it fill with the hottest water he could stand. The low groan he let out sounded dirty and he heard Cougar laugh.

"Hand check." Aisha poked her head into the room, and Jensen could see Cougar holding his hands up.

"Don't look, I'm naked!" Jensen yelled and Aisha glared at him once she saw he was in the bathtub.

"Not everyone wants to see that!" Aisha growled at him and shut the connecting door. Cougar laughed harder and wandered into the bathroom. Jensen watched Cougar lower the toilet lid and sit down, and start watching him like he was going to sprout a second head.

"I feel like shit." Jensen kept his voice low, even though he knew the connecting door was closed. "On so many levels it's not even funny."

"It worked out." Cougar's voice was equally quiet, and Jensen looked at him. Cougar had dark circles under his eyes and Jensen wondered just how many days he'd been running on minimum sleep. Jensen opened his mouth but Cougar glared at him. "Don't apologize again."

"Again?" Jensen pointed to the small bar of soap and a washcloth on the counter, and smiled when Cougar passed them. "Other than trying to kneecap you, I remember that apology."

"You kept muttering it the last 2 days." Cougar leaned forward and still looked worried. "You were still hallucinating earlier today."

"How do you know?" Jensen was actually curious, and a little embarrassed.

"You called Aisha 'Jolene' for about three hours while she held your head over the trash can. And you called Clay 'Roque' for two." Cougar smiled a bit as Jensen made an unhappy face.

"I remember Jolene, I do not remember Roque." Jensen threw the washcloth into the water with more force than necessary. "I didn't say anything super embarrassing did I?"

"No. But you did puke on Clay thinking he was Roque." Cougar grinned at him and Jensen was hoping he was just teasing.

"Awesome." Jensen sank deeper into the tub and added more hot water. "Did I think you were anyone else?"

"I don't know. You just apologized. A lot." Cougar shrugged and stood up to leave. "Don't drown."

Jensen bit back any smart ass remarks as Cougar left the bathroom and went into the adjoining room. Once the water started getting cold, Jensen hauled himself out of the tub and pulled on clean clothes. He didn't realize until half way through his bath that he'd been in the same clothes for almost a week without showering. Shivering at the thought of how much the code had affected him, Jensen sank down on to the bed and stared at the dark television until Cougar came back in with food.

They ate in silence. When they were done, Jensen stretched out on top of the covers and waited for Cougar to clean up dinner. When Cougar finally stretched out next to him, Jensen linked their fingers together and listened to the sounds of the TV coming from the other room.

"I'm just now realizing how fucked up this is." Jensen whispered, as he realized he had no urges to go into the other room and destroy the set. Just mild curiosity as to what they were watching, and enough fear that he didn't want to turn on the set in his room. "All of it."

Cougar didn't say anything, just squeezed his hand. Jensen looked over to find Cougar staring at him, and offered up a weak smile. As Jensen felt himself falling asleep, he thought he heard Cougar tell him it would be fine, but he wasn't sure. Instead he just inched closer to the familiar body heat and tried to ignore everything else.

When Jensen woke up, he actually danced around the room when he realized he hadn't had any nightmares. He felt refreshed, hungry, and really wanted his laptop and cell phone back. He was still wary of the television, and didn't want to actually make any calls with his phone, but it was an improvement. Clay refused to let him do any work, and ordered him to just chill for another day.

At 2pm Clay finally cracked when Jensen started singing "100 Loving Ways to Love a Cat." Aisha had left the room at 'Way 6' and Cougar had left at 'Way 11'. To his credit, Clay lasted until 'Way 46' before he broke down and let Jensen have his laptop back with the promise to shut up and not look at the code. Jensen didn't let on that he was about to give up the song at 'Way 50' because he'd managed to annoy himself.

It only took ten minutes of Jensen being clear headed to sort through all the footage that Brandon's super computer had cleaned up. While still creepy, Jensen was able to focus on the task at hand and ignore the majority of the video's content while he dug around in the background. After digging the equipment he stole from Morgan's out of the closet to confirm his suspicions, Jensen smiled to himself as he yelled for Clay.

"All of the creepy stuff in Morgan's video was added after he'd filmed it, probably not realizing Morgan put in a fail safe. All of the hidden images and ambient noises were added at least two days after he'd filmed it. The static I thought was just from the file being corrupted was actually there before all the creepy stuff, meaning Morgan put it there. I knew something was off about the static in the video, I just didn't know what it was because I was too focused on everything else going on." Jensen played just the static and watched as Clay's face registered surprise. "It's morse code. It's a warning that the code is fucked up and gives a file number. I found the file on one of the hard drives I took from Morgan's, and it's another video. And no I didn't watch it. All the documentation in the same folder as the video talks about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. I think it's a way to counteract the code."

"Well you're doing fine without it. I don't want you to watch it. When Aisha gets back I'll have her watch it, and if it's what you think it is, we'll go from there." Clay slapped him on the back and Jensen couldn't help but feel smug. The feeling faded though as he realized just how far gone he'd been, and that if Morgan hadn't hidden something in the video, Jensen would have lost it completely.

"I feel like I've lost two weeks of my life." Jensen sighed and closed the laptop. He smiled faintly that he had no urges to hurt it, and no urges to dig deeper into the hard drive beyond normal curiosity.

"I know the feeling. You scared the shit out of us." Clay went to the cooler and fished out two bottles of water. "I thought Cougar was going to have a heart attack the first time you called. I think it freaked Aisha out a bit, seeing him so animated."

"I bet." Jensen smiled a little at the mental image of Aisha being freaked out. Then he remembered what Cougar had told him the night before. "So my comment about not horking on you, I've been told I need to retract that."

"Well technically you never threw up on me, you threw up on Roque." Clay smiled at him and Jensen couldn't help but laugh. "Rest up. Soon as you're ready, we're heading to Maryland. Aisha found a company that on the surface seems to be suffering like any computer firm would be with most of it's employees being affected by that code. On closer inspection, they have 8 very highly trained hackers that haven't been affected."

"They're finishing the work Morgan wouldn't. I chased the original upload of the code through a server in Bethesda, that might be them." Jensen felt his mind firing in a dozen directions at once and was thrilled at the clarity.


End file.
